Xbox "720" "Durango" Rumored to Have No Disc Drive

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]NewbieTechGodII[/nom]the floppy is obsolete. DVDs are not.[/citation]
As soon as Bluray disks arrived they were, if it has an optical drive at all it should be one of thees, even then I would make it modular optional item so those of us who have fast unlimited internet can have system that runs from HDD only. If I want to watch Bluray movies or play old disks then by all means add the drive as well. The HD-DVD add-on was a great idea it just sided with the wrong format.

 

[NewbieTechGodII]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]As soon as Bluray disks arrived they were, if it has an optical drive at all it should be one of thees, even then I would make it modular optional item so those of us who have fast unlimited internet can have system that runs from HDD only. If I want to watch Bluray movies or play old disks then by all means add the drive as well. The HD-DVD add-on was a great idea it just sided with the wrong format.[/citation]

Please tell me how DVDs are obsolete?

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]NewbieTechGodII[/nom]Please tell me how DVDs are obsolete?[/citation]
A game that comes on 4 disks for DVD can fit on 1 disk for Bluray
...
Costs associated with production, licensing and distribution are all multiplied for no good reason.
...
CDs killed floppy disks, DVDs killed CDs, Bluray killed DVDs - at least you can have backwards compatability with a Bluray drive for old DVD disks, but there is no reason to put a DVD drive in any new machine.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]jacekring[/nom]Are you joking? 60gb is TINY if they go download only. They would require at LEAST a 500gb, but I would like to see a 2tb drive.How many games do you think you can fit on a 60gb? 10? if your lucky. Right now most games are in the 4-6 gb range some getting up to 20+ gigs....just look at the last Final Fantasy game that came out, it's HUGE.Additionally if they move to download only you will see game graphics DECLINE. As developers will use lower resolution textures to limit download sizes, what developer wants customers frustrated with long download times? Even with Cable internet (8mb+) for a 20 gig game you'd be looking at around 3-4 hours to download. And on release day you could be look at 1-2 days to download, as people top out bandwidth for popular games. Such as release day on Halo, CoD, etc.Download only will NOT work until broadband is more prevalent and bandwidth is increased globally. Steam works because there are FAR fewer (I'm among them) PC players then there are console players.[/citation]
He did say a big external HDD, and i'dce like to see links for the number of PC gamers vs console gamers

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]jacekring[/nom]Steam works because there are FAR fewer (I'm among them) PC players then there are console players.[/citation]
http/software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/03/03/just-how-many-pc-gamers-are-there/

I’ve seen estimates under a ~100 million, to highs of over ~300 million. Personally I lean more toward the high end of the spectrum. If I had to put a stake in the ground I’d say that there are at least ~100-150m enthusiast (high-end) and mainstream gamers, and potentially another ~100-200m more casual gamers

So somewhere between 200 million and 350 million
That is at least equal to double all the consoles combined

 

[loomis86]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]A game that comes on 4 disks for DVD can fit on 1 disk for Bluray...Costs associated with production, licensing and distribution are all multiplied for no good reason....CDs killed floppy disks, DVDs killed CDs, Bluray killed DVDs - at least you can have backwards compatability with a Bluray drive for old DVD disks, but there is no reason to put a DVD drive in any new machine.[/citation]


Blue ray is a joke. It is the betamax of the current era. SD cards are the future and until then, it is DVD.

 

[Guest]

They will probably have an external disc player as an accessory for like 100 bucks for backwards compatability. Just like that hd dvd player. Yea I can see it not having a optical drive especially with the on demand games and being able to install games to the hdd. It would be nothing for MS to toss in a bigger hard drive, plus when you beat a game you could very well just delete it to save space. The game will remain in your account purchase history, so you could just download it again if you ever feel nostalgic. For people offline, I'm sure MS will setup some sort of kiosk in walmart or something like red box. You take your removable storage device, hell maybe your whole hard drive, plug it in, pay for your games, and watch them transfer to your hard drive. So its not an entirely insane idea that MS will ditch the optical drive. As stated Laptop makers are already doing the same thing. Oh no, how will i ever get my copy of Office on my laptop. Download it. How will I get my games to install on my laptop. Download them. Thats what Steam and EA's Origins are for. The optical drive is beginning to be a thing of the past. No body likes scratches on their dvds so they back them up to the computer and make copies.

 

[cknobman]

LOL dont know why so many people even still care. When I heard of the shitty graphics card it would have 2 months ago I lost interest. This is just another "nail in the coffin".

 

[h3llr4iser]

Hmm...this is definitely "vaporware", no information is reliable. I doubt greatly the console will have no optical drive, considering how cheap they are.

On the games distribution system, however, there is lots of ground to move on. Cloud gaming is ALREADY here, just go to onlive.com; It works amazingly well considering the technology it works on is rather crude. If developed well, It could endanger the very concept of a console, as it allows to play any game on any device that's got a network connection (PC, netbook, tabled, smartphone).

Of course there are drawbacks - streaming the game "movie" and control inputs requires an hefty connection and can cause lag; Problems that can potentially be solved by having, guess what, some dedicated hardware on the user's side, capable of receiving and processing highly-compressed data in real time. The mistake we're doing here is that we think about games they way they are designed and coded today, which is not necessarily the most efficient way.

I do understand the concept of wanting to have the game residing on your optical disk/hard drive; However it is very important to make it clear that by buying an Xbox360, PS3 or PC game an individual is buying a LICENSE TO USE THE GAME, not the game itself. Software is an immaterial good, just like a Pay TV subscription or a gym membership is - its sheer data space requirements make it so that it has to come on a physical media, distorting the perception we have about its nature.

Games and software are, in the end, a service and all services work on a provided basis: your electricity, water, TV and radio all come from provider's networks; Games and software will very likely go the same way as soon as a technology fast, simple and reliable enough will be available.

 

[invlem]

Personally I think flash based media storage makes a lot more sense! I'd love it if my xbox games library was on a bunch of SD cards.

You have to look at the advantage of flash storage, for one seek times are gone since you don't have to physically index yourself to a specific location on a disc. (This is one of the biggest problems with PS3 and their blu-ray drives and why loading time is sooo long, seeking on blu-ray media takes forever).

 

[srgess]

a cool thing would be that xbox come with a removable hd or ssd what ever, if you want to buy a game you go to any game seller and you pay the game and they upload it into your drive. That way you save many plastic paper and if they find a way to encrypt the file so no way pirate is able to crack.

 

[NewbieTechGodII]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]A game that comes on 4 disks for DVD can fit on 1 disk for Bluray...Costs associated with production, licensing and distribution are all multiplied for no good reason....CDs killed floppy disks, DVDs killed CDs, Bluray killed DVDs - at least you can have backwards compatability with a Bluray drive for old DVD disks, but there is no reason to put a DVD drive in any new machine.[/citation]

yes BR has a higher capacity, but how long has it been out? Do you see a massive rush to BR by consumers? Going from VHS to DVD made/makes a lot of sense...there is no compelling reason to go from DVD to BR, no matter how much you protest.

And then there is the cost: BR-R media is about $25 for 25 disc's. DVD-R gets you 50 of them for $13...which do you want if you're a manufacturer? Sure those 25 BR-Rs gets you more storage capacity than 50 DVDs, but then you need a BR player, an HDMI cable, and a Hi-Def TV.

And what if you don't need a 25GB disc in the first place? Besides, manufacturers are going to distribute their software on the platform which has the biggest user base. Downloading an OS .iso can take a very long time and you think it's cool to do that for games of a much bigger size? Screw that.

Finally, BR is sony...ain't no way MS is going to pay sony for jacksh1t.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]dalauder[/nom]Apparently nobody realizes that a game can be made available for download faster than it can be distributed to retail shelves? Additionally, it doesn't cost $10 to make an 8GB SD card. It'll cost $2, which will only add a negligible amount to the $60 games people are buying while adding a lot of flexibility when games end up 20GB in size and giving you an extra SD card for future use once you copy it all to your HDD.I don't know where people got the idea that no Optical drive means an SSD in the XBox 720. Microsoft wants to save money. That means no SSD unless it's an optional HDD upgrade.Blu-ray isn't the future. It'll pass since so many people watch movies online or download movies regularly. It's ridiculous that I should need a special player just to watch what should be sold to me online or on an SD card.[/citation]

Being able to be downloaded doesn't matter if you don't have an internet connection fast enough to download the games today (most people don't). Think about it. Some games press past 25GB right now and just to have that downloaded in less than four hours would necessitate a 16Mb connection. Considering that new consoles would have games that use more capacity than current ones, lets tip that up to say 40GB for some of the largest games. At that same 16Mb/s connection it now takes over 5 and a half hours. I don't know about you, but the longest I want to wait for something like this is around 15 minutes. You would need a 50Mb/s connection just to get the game downloaded in a reasonable amount of time.

Here in the USA, it's fairly unlikely for most people to have a 50Mb/s connection or better. Of course if you live in most other countries you won't have such a problem (most, not all, some are even worse than the USA). Several countries have 500MB/s and 1GB/s common place for home users and they pay less than we do here in the USA for our much slower speeds.

As for SD cards, they aren't as cheap as you think. They tend to be under $1 per GB now, but they still don't come close to optical storage and modern magnetic storage in capacity for the price. Also, there's nothing "special" about having a Blu-Ray player. It's fairly simple, they can use Blu-Ray disks. It's no more special than a CD/DVD player in your computer. Consoles needed cheap, high capacity storage and optical storage fits the bill. Blu-Ray doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon since all of this "cloud" crap as thus far failed on MANY occasions and is one of the most easily hacked platforms ever since these guys we trust with our data refuse to secure it properly. Then there's the problems that aren't the fault of the cloud guys such as internet black outs. If I'm stuck at home with nothing to do and the Internet goes down, well then games are definitely one of the few things to do and if I can't play because I don't have a working internet connection at the time, well I'll be pissed.

SD card storage and such would be perfect if it were cheaper, but we would need 32GB and 64GB cards and those simply aren't as cheap as 25GB and 50GB or even 100GB Blu-Ray disks.

 

[Guest]

Gamestop is going to shit their pants over this. I'm surprised they do not have reps talking to Msoft asap over this. They make a fine profit off the used game business and gamestop heavily promotes Xbox products, plus all the ancilliary beneifits of having more players in the gaming ecosystem. Plus, some ppl still, myself included, rushing to release day events etc at brick and mortar stores.

 

[maximiza]

I guess 3D high def video, 3d lossless audio movies are out now for the Crapbox,, i mean xbox720

 

[thefiend1]

no optical disc drive, no get...

 

[Tab54o]

This is going to kill the xbox, I can't wait.

 

[NewbieTechGodII]

It's nothing but talk. But even if it were true, I am happy with my 360s, and when the new XBOX gets in and the older ones are traded at GameStop, I should be able to get a good deal on a couple more.

 

[robochump]

Games on a chip will be much more secure from pirating as well as console game devs preventing games from working on other consoles the chip was not originally activated on Bye-bye game sharing in the future and that does not bode well for Game Fly or other game renting companies unless gaming Devs will include special version of the gaming chips for sharing which I doubt.

 

[robochump]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]A game that comes on 4 disks for DVD can fit on 1 disk for Bluray...Costs associated with production, licensing and distribution are all multiplied for no good reason....CDs killed floppy disks, DVDs killed CDs, Bluray killed DVDs - at least you can have backwards compatability with a Bluray drive for old DVD disks, but there is no reason to put a DVD drive in any new machine.[/citation]

Streaming and DVRs will kill them all. Sales of physical disks are at a all time low. This is one reason Netflix tried to divide their company and eventually write off the DVD/Blue Ray division but they went about it very poorly. Blue Ray is the last hoorah of dying tech.